AFRODIASPORIC DIMENSIONS OF NESTOR ORTIZ ODERIGOS' COLLECTION: A PRELIMINARY STUDY FOR ITS COMPREHENSION

This article presents the results of the research carried out on the ‘Néstor Ortíz Oderigo’ collection at the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought in Buenos Aires. It is a heterogeneous corpus of different materialities (ethnographic objects, books and records) collected during the lifetime of the Argentine intellectual Néstor Ortíz Oderigo, mostly related to Afro-American and African themes. In this paper we are interested in tracing the course of the collection, its institutional trajectory and its current treatment, with the aim of highlighting the specificities, potentialities and problematicities of a collection that is unique in its kind. To this end, we will present the collection's materialities as a whole, which will allow us to establish the Afro-diasporic dimensions of the collection, as well as the interests of the author and the intellectual networks of the mid-twentieth century, a key period in the emergence of Afro-Latin American studies. Paying special attention to the local context of the production of otherness and the invisibilization of the African and Afro-Argentine legacy, we understand that this unique documentary and heritage archive illuminates the different theorizations on the African dimensions of the American continent and represents an important, if unknown, source of study that can open up new narratives and museum practices on Afrodiasporic connections from Argentina.